First team: Jabari Parker, 6-8 freshman forward, Duke

4 / 15

For a minute there, it was easy: Doug McDermott—all in favor?

Oh, if only the entire process could have gone so smoothly.

It was pretty much a joyful trudge from that point on. It’s always delightful to talk about the season’s best college basketball players, but it is painful to eliminate some who’ve delivered fine performances in favor of others we judged to be slightly finer. There were such narrow distinctions between the players who made the list of 15 honored and those who did not.

Of course, if we tried to tell the unfortunate exclusions that all this hurt us more than it hurt them, that’d probably be a tough sell.

So this is what our staff came up with: the 2013-14 college basketball All-Americans.

On a team that lacked an obvious lead scoring option, Johnson stepped forward with versatility and productivity that included 10 games of 20 points or more, 47 made 3-pointers and 121 free throw points. On a team that lacked a backup point guard, Johnson took over whenever starter T.J. McConnell needed a break, which affected Johnson’s ability to put up higher point totals.

Johnson also was the team’s top backcourt defender, accepting the assignment of checking whichever player was the opponent’s most dangerous guard. He held Michgan star Nik Stauskas to 4-of-11 shooting and UCLA’s Jordan Adams to 4-of-15 shooting. On the night teammate Brandon Ashley was injured, Johnson missed 13 of his 14 shots, but after adjusting to a different alignment he produced games of 20 points against Colorado, 22 against California and 25 against Oregon State.

Johnson on Johnson: “We lost a lot from last year … a lot of scoring. I knew that it was definitely something I had to pick up. With freshmen going to be a big part of our year—there’s always going to be lulls with them. I try to be more assertive in bigger games.”

There was one obvious responsibility for every opponent facing Cincinnati: stop Kilpatrick. The rest of the Bearcats were hit-or-miss—sometimes hit-or-mostly-miss—on offense. But even with extraordinary defensive attention paid to him, Kilpatrick regularly delivered huge games against the best teams Cincinnati played: 52 points in two games against Memphis, 56 in two games against Louisville, 42 in two games against Connecticut. Kilpatrick is an expert at getting fouled, with 199 free throw attempts through 31 games, and even better at converting layups in transition or through halfcourt offense. Kilpatrick is at the heart of Cincinnati’s No. 7-rated defense, frequently earning the assignment of guarding the opposing team’s top perimeter threat.

Cincinnati forward Titus Rubles on Kilpatrick: “He does everything right. I’ve never seen someone, like, even on his bad days—I can’t tell when it’s his bad days. Everybody will be at practice, and some people will be tired, he’ll be tired too but you can’t tell. It makes you want to go harder when you see the best player on the team is going hard every day.”

When his career ends, McDermott may be considered the greatest offensive player of college basketball’s 3-point era. That’s quite the accomplishment for a player who, it must be acknowledged, was the second-best player on his own high school team. (Ames High also had a young fellow named Harrison Barnes on the squad at the same time). McDermott was an instant smash at Creighton and this season has blistered the higher-level opposition he is seeing nightly in the Big East Conference. Only three times in conference play did McDermott fail to reach the 20-point mark, and the Jays won each game. McDermott works relentlessly to get open shots on the perimeter and also is an effective scorer in the post.

Creighton coach Greg McDermott on Doug: “This is a bonus for me. I wasn’t sure he was coming back. To have these four together and to have Doug share his senior year with three of his best friends in the same class—it’s really been incredible. All the accolades and all the points, the way he’s handled it has been incredible. But for me to be able to see every second of it is really, really cool and something I’ll carry with me for a long time.”

A whole lot of people forgot rather quickly about Parker’s special talent after he broke his foot in the summer before his senior year at Chicago’s Simeon Career Academy. He lost months of training time and drifted out of shape. But showing up at Duke last summer to prepare for his freshman year allowed him to get in excellent condition to dominate as a freshman, and he burst into the public’s attention with 20-point efforts in his first seven college games. Parker may be the most versatile offensive player in Division I, scoring as a deep shooter and in the post, and most places in between. Parker’s defensive efforts have been criticized, but it’s important to acknowledge he plays most of his minutes out of position, guarding the other team’s center. He also contributes defensively as an elite rebounder who led the team and closed the season with seven double-figure efforts on the boards in his final eight games.

Duke guard Rasheed Sulaimon on Parker: “Jabari is a different type of human being. As much praise and accolades that he’s had, he’s the most humble kid that you’ll ever meet. He’s so grounded and he’s not the guy that wants to be in the spotlight. He’s the guy that wants his team to be in the spotlight. We’ve been telling him as a player that he needs to go out there and dominate the game because nobody in the country can guard him.”

From perhaps the humblest beginnings of any NCAA champion/first-team All-American, Smith developed into a player whose own nickname no longer fit. Russdiculous? That’s certainly unique, but Smith has advanced to the point where he now plays solid, winning basketball and rarely is guilty of the brain-freeze moments that led to coach Rick Pitino assigning that label. Smith returned to Louisville after the 2013 Cardinals won the national championship with an eye toward completing a spectacular college career and demonstrating he can function as an effective playmaker. The guy who once made silly decisions a regular routine passed for 13 assists in the final game against Connecticut and 16 times had five or more. He still could rip up the nets, as well, such as hitting 6-of-6 on 3-pointers against SMU and 10 total games of 20 or more points.

Coach Rick Pitino on Smith: “He’s made it a lot of fun for me. With Russ, he works hard. All I ask for is everybody works hard, plays for the right reasons. Everybody’s got their peculiarities you deal with. With Russ, you just have to give him more latitude at the offensive end.”

You would not expect the list of college basketball players most likely to record a triple double to include a small point guard among the first several entries, but Napier is not any 6-1 guard. He already has an NCAA championship on his resume, having played an essential role for UConn in its furious drive to the 2011 title. As a senior, he carried the Huskies on a routine basis, providing scoring when it was necessary (34 points in a comeback win over Memphis, 30 in a battle to hang with Louisville) and rebounding and playmaking on a regular basis because they always were in need of both.

The player expected to star for the Tar Heels, veteran wing P.J. Hairston, got himself into enough of a jackpot to be ruled ineligible for the year, forcing Paige to manage a greatly expanded role. He handled it beautifully, shifting between the point guard and shooting guard positions and delivering both leadership and production to rescue a season that could have imploded. He went for 35 points in an overtime comeback win at N.C. State, took command of the Heels’ home victory over rival Duke late in the game and slammed Louisville with 32 points in the first of the team’s four victories against opponents ranked 11th or better.

Every player on this list, save for the freshmen, made incremental improvements from season to season in order to wind up as an All-American. More than anyone else, Stauskas redefined his game. As a freshman he primarily was a catch-and-shoot weapon for the Wolverines in their charge to the 2013 NCAA championship game. He became a ballhandler in his second season, attacking defenders with his newly unleashed ability to dribble the ball and penetrate the lane. His assists total nearly doubled (52 to 99) and his free throw attempts did, too (87 to 164). His 25-point, 5-assist performance against Michigan State on Feb. 23 helped send the Wolverines in the direction of a Big Ten regular-season title.

How good do you have to be to make one of SN’s All-America teams from a squad unlikely to reach the NCAA Tournament? Probably this good. Warren’s productivity was almost cartoonish, particularly when the Pack played their ACC schedule. He punished Pitt’s every defensive lapse in a 41-point performance to beat the Panthers on the road, hit North Carolina for 36 and Duke for a “below-average” 23. Even on days when the team as a whole was poor, Warren’s stardom persevered: 20 points in disappointing losses to both Clemson and Miami that helped crush the Pack’s NCAA at-large dreams.

Many fans spent so much time searching for a Wiggins who never existed—a player erroneously billed by some as a better prospect than Kevin Durant or Derrick Rose by those didn’t know his game—they missed the spectacular show he presented. Wiggins has a habit of performing feats ordinary humans could not conceive. No one is more fearsome on the fast break, Wiggins able to cover more ground in fewer strides than most any college player and elevate above the defense higher and longer. His athleticism and hunger made him an elite defender and important rebounder for the Jayhawks. With center Joel Embiid injured and the team in a deep hole at West Virginia, Wiggins exploded for 41 points to lead an unsuccessful comeback attempt. He dominated KU’s sweep of Iowa State with 46 points and 26 rebounds.

As a freshman, Anderson played primarily at power forward. We don’t see many such players converted to point guards, but Anderson has been a point nearly his entire career. Even without standing above the crowd, he has excellent vision as a passer and understands how to slow the game down to a pace he prefers without turning it into a slog. With the Bruins playing a lot of zone defense, Anderson is able to stay close to the goal at that end and function as an elite defensive rebounder. He is not a great 3-point shooter, but Anderson’s patience and his understanding of angles—as well as the value of the height advantage he enjoys—enable him to damage defenses by dribbling carefully into range and connect on short jumpers.

If the coaches who vote were paying attention—and their track record says most often they are not—Gordon should win the NABC’s award for defensive player of the year. He promised he could guard any position and then backed that up, taking on Duke’s Jabari Parker and shutting down Michigan State’s Glenn Robinson when the Wildcats needed him to secure those matchups. Gordon played much of the year on the wing, then switched to power forward when teammate Brandon Ashley was lost to an injury. In that role he produced some of his finest games, including a 19-point/15 rebound double-double in beating Stanford and a 23-point, 8-rebound effort to gain a road win at Colorado. Gordon can struggle to score at times, but never to make an impact.

The player welcomed to leave Marshall after last season seemed to bear no resemblance to the guy who seized his final opportunity to make a winning impact on a college program. As a graduate transfer, Kane was an immediate smash for the Cyclones. He seemed to lose a little bit of his celebrity as the season progressed, even being outvoted for Big 12 player of the year by teammate Melvin Ejim, but Kane is a point guard, not a Kardashian. (The only one of those who could put up numbers like Kane was Lamar Odom.) Kane looked Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart in the eye in a couple of overtime classics and never flinched, contributing 53 points and 17 assists as the Cyclones won both. He almost singlehandedly sent Baylor into a swoon with his 30 points and 9 assists in a 15-point ISU rout.

On a balanced team featuring several players who might have been honored here—forward Cleanthony Early, guard Ron Baker—VanVleet was the engine driving the Shockers’ perfection. When they came closest to the edge, in a 3-point overtime road win against Missouri State in mid-January, they turned the ball over to VanVleet and got out of his way. He scored 12 of the team’s final 13 points to secure that win, then spent the rest of the year assuring WSU would not have to sweat like that again. His contributions alternated from 22 points in the Missouri Valley title game against Indiana State to eight assists and five steals on the road at Evansville. Van Vleet joined UNLV’s Greg Anthony, Indiana’s Quinn Buckner, Indiana State's Steve Reed and Rutgers’ Eddie Jordan as the most recent point guards to guide their teams into the NCAA Tournament undefeated. That’s some sweet company.

How good do you have to be to make one of SN’s All-America teams with a five-game suspension on your record? Probably this good. The dichotomy of Wilbekin’s senior season is that his immaturity during the offseason forced him to the bench for the start of his senior year, but his calm direction of the Gators’ attack at both ends led the team on a tear into March only Wichita State’s Shockers could exceed. Wilbekin is one of the nation’s best defensive point guards, and his improved jump shooting—37.9 percent 3-point accuracy—gave definition to an offense whose weapons can be limited. In Florida’s biggest recent test, a road game at Kentucky, Wilbekin took over the final minutes of what had been a tight game and delivered 23 points that helped secure another double-digit victory.